ROCKFORD — The number of new foreclosure cases filed in the first four months of 2014 has fallen to levels not seen since 2002-2003, giving rise to the hope that the local real estate market may finally begin clearing abandoned homes from the market.

In the first four months of 2014, there were 549 new foreclosure cases filed in the circuit courts of Boone, Ogle and Winnebago counties. That’s a 37 percent decline from the same time period in 2013, and it’s 56 percent below the first four months of 2010 when foreclosures peaked.

Bob Campbell, head of the Rockford office of HomeStart, a nonprofit that works with home owners who have fallen behind on payments, said the decline isn’t from a sudden improvement in economic climate.

“We’ve been struggling with double-digit unemployment for so long that the reality is most of the people who fell behind on their mortgage because they lost their job have already lost their house,” Campbell said.

As of March, the unemployment rate of Boone and Winnebago counties was 10.8 percent. The local jobless rate has been 10 percent or higher since December 2008.

The sharp decline in new foreclosure cases means the area is inching closer to a time where it may finally begin to clear out the massive backlog of distressed properties dragging prices down.

According to the Rockford Area Realtors Association, its members have been involved in 1,042 sales through April. More than 40 percent of the sales each month have been either a foreclosed home or a short sale. That means at least 415 of the sales were distressed properties.

So, if you do the math, even though foreclosures have fallen significantly, the area still had more foreclosures enter the pipeline than ones cleared through April. But if sales continue to grow — last year there were more than 350 homes sold each month from May through October — sales of foreclosed properties could top new foreclosure filings this summer.

“That’s just huge,” said Frank Wehrstein, president of Dickerson & Nieman Realtors. “We’ve seen more confidence in the marketplace, more activity at open houses. We’re still short on inventory. I can’t give you a number, but there’s no question (that having so many foreclosures still in the market) has been a concern for sellers.”

The high percentage of distressed sales has driven prices down to levels not seen in this millennium. The average price of homes sold in the first quarter of the year was $88,142. That’s the lowest quarterly average in the association’s records, which date back to 1998. The market peaked in the second quarter of 2007 when the 1,767 homes sold that April, May and June sold for an average of $146,652.